


It's the Steel Method

by Anielka



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: I had the time of my life writing this, Kid Fic, M/M, Peter's POV, Puppy Love, based on a John Mulaney monologue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 12:08:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17344964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anielka/pseuds/Anielka
Summary: Peter is accompanying Mags to a heist in Mars and ends up running into Benzaiten Steel, who insists on dragging him to meet his brother to teach Peter how to defend himself with strange tips.Peter ends up a little smarter and pinning.





	It's the Steel Method

**Author's Note:**

> WELL IF IT ISNT ME   
> IGNORING MY OTHER TWO FICS AND MY CALC EXAM
> 
> Buuuut this was fun!! And I love John Mulaney so...   
> A big, heartfelt 'thank you' to Casey!! Who indulged me by checking this awful English of mine. You're a treasure, girl.  
> And a round of applause to my beta, Sara! Who isn't even in the fandom but still read this. Hon, you're a true friend.
> 
> Enjoy!!

 

Mags had cared for and given Peter lots of things through their first years together: food, a roof over his head, fatherly affection; and as the years went on, he gave him new things: fancy clothes, a charming smile, and the impulse to steal pocket watches and diamond earrings.

The problem is, as a 12-year-old, these last ones did him more wrong than right. Especially around other children. Girls and boys were utterly unimpressed with the big words he knew, and there were only so many times one could pretend to ‘accidentally steal’ someone’s Turbo action figure.

Mags had given him the tools to fight against the adult world and come out not only victorious but richer, but he never gave him the every-day tricks to fight off bullies.

That was something Peter had never thought about; at least, until Mags decided to stop in Mars to steal some prized whatever from the Martian Museum, or whatever it was called. Peter hadn’t learned the name because he had thought they wouldn’t be staying long.

He was proven wrong.

And it was maddening! Usually they stayed a couple of nights (the record being five, for a really boring incursion to a palace in Themis) and then they packed up and moved on. But no, not this one. Peter was even enrolled into school. He had never been to school before! It was a horrible place, Peter couldn’t understand how the other children managed to do as they were told!

‘Mr. Auriga, please sit down.’

‘Mr. Auriga, stop squirming.’

‘Mr. Auriga, stop doodling and pay attention.’

Peter had thought ‘Amir Auriga’ sounded cool, but after hearing it repeated over a million times in his teacher’s ugly voice, he decided he never, ever wanted to use that name again.

Ever.

But the thing that took the cake for the Worst Thing at school were bullies. Peter didn’t know a lot about bullies or juvenile delinquents, but the ones in Mars, he swore, had to be the Worst in the Universe.

What kind of bully saw Peter, in his improvised sweaters of dubious precedence (Mags hadn’t told him where he got them) and with his absolutely empty Andromeda wallet Mags had bought him when they arrived, and thought, hey, this kid probably has money for me to buy alcohol? Peter had thought Mags would give him some creds to, at least, buy himself some decent lunch, but he quickly realized why he hadn’t: Mars’ bullies really liked picking on anyone they could find.

‘Like you could carry a lot in an Andromeda wallet,’ Peter scoffed. Or he would have, had he not been trapped in a corner surrounded by tenth graders with the bodies of mythological titans, all yelling at him to empty his pockets.

That had been fun. (SO NOT FUN.)

Another thing Peter learned while on Mars: bullies didn’t like it when you were smarter than them.

And Peter had, arguably, been smarter than them as he tried to empty his bottomless pockets and told them:

“You know, I carry lots of things in my pockets, can we leave it for another day?”

 _Oh, boy_. Big mistake right there.

Peter was saying goodbye to his still intact face when a new voice interrupted them.

“Hey, Morgan!” One of the bullies, presumably Morgan, turned around, leaving Peter with a clear view of the newcomer.

A kid, the same age as Peter, standing up fearlessly in the middle of the road, head held high with a smug smirk.

“You want this?” He showed off something in his hand. From where Peter could see, it was a 50-cred bill tucked into a money clip. The attention of the bullies went to the clip like wild dogs to their prey. “Go get it!”

The kid threw the money clip to the other side of the road and the tenth graders all ran to get it, tumbling over each other and barking curses. The kid shot forward, grabbed Peter’s wrist and pulled him in the opposite direction, and they ran.

When they finally stopped, several streets away from the other kids, Peter took his time to assess his savior.

He wasn’t, by any means, someone who looked like he had 50-cred bills to spare: he had worn down clothes in muted colors, like they had been washed too many times, that stood out against his dark skin; his hair was in a messy braid and some of the hairs in the front were out of their place after their escape. He was just standing there, looking back at Peter, not as if he was studying him too, but as if he was waiting for Peter to be done with his examination.

“Thank you.” Peter wasn’t sure as to why the other kid had helped him and wasn’t too pleased with the idea of him asking Peter something in return. Peter hated debts.

“You’re welcome!” He smiled. He had a warm smile and a kind voice and Peter decided that, whatever this kid wanted, Peter would probably be okay with it if he asked while he smiled like That. “Are you okay? They didn’t hit you, did they?”

“No, you got there just in time.”

“I’m glad! Older kids are always ready to mug us, we need to help each other.” He shot Peter a conspiratorial smile. Peter smiled back, feeling a little guilty for pickpocketing people in his spare time. “I’m Benzaiten Steel.” The kid said and offered him his hand.

Peter shook it and spoke before thinking.

“Peter Nureyev.”

“Peter Nu-re-yev.” Benzaiten repeated. “It’s good to finally know your name! We’ve seen you around school. I don’t think we have any class together, but you’re new, right?”

“Y-yeah. Um, ‘we’?”

“My brother and I, sorry. We’ve been wondering how you’ve been adjusting. You don’t seem from around here.” Peter tried to imagine a second Benzaiten, all smiles and kind words. It’s was a nice thought.

“I’m from Brahma,” Peter revealed and winced. Mags would kill him if he knew how much he was telling a complete stranger.

“Brahma? Where is that?”

“Far, far away from here.”

“Far enough that they don’t have bullies?” Benzaiten teased and Peter blushed in shame.

“I- I don’t- uhm..”

“It’s fine.” Benzaiten put his hand in Peter’s shoulder. “I didn’t really know how to stand for myself either, so my brother made some tricks for me.”

“He- he did?”

“Yeah! He’s really good at fighting! And because he knows I’m really not that good at it, we have these- oh! The thing I did back there, the ‘you want it’ thing, he taught me it! You saw how effective it is! Oh!” He rambled with bright eyes. “I can ask him to teach you, too!”

 _‘You threw 50 creds into the streets, but sure, let’s call it effective.’_ Was what Peter wanted to say.

 _‘No, thank you, I have to get home right now.’_ Was another thing.

‘ _My adoptive dad is stealing from your museum and I’ll be gone very, very soon_.’ Was a possibility.

But, facing Benzaiten Steel’s enthusiasm and the opportunity to learn a new skill, Peter said:

“Sure, I’d love to.” And let himself be dragged through unknown streets into Mars’ Old Town.

 

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 

As it turned out, Benzaiten Steel and his brother were nothing alike. And this was considering they were twins.

When Benzaiten had finally stopped before a shambling house and opened the door, Peter had been expecting some sort of warm welcome from this ‘incredible brother’, and what he got was a resting bitch face and the words ‘And where were you?” from the grumpiest kid he had ever seen his entire life.

Benzaiten filled him in with the details, rambling at lightspeed, while his brother just stared at Peter with a contemplative look in his dark eyes.

When Benzaiten ended his tale, the brother asked:

“So you want me to, what? Teach him what I taught you? Why don’t you teach him yourself?”

“Because you know them better than I do, Juuunoo, please?”

That was how Peter learned the brother’s name. Juno. _Juno Steel._

Peter replayed that name in his head several times, testing it. It was a great name. A very pretty name.

A fitting name, he thought later, as he skimmed over the name’s origins: a goddess of protectors. Juno Steel gave Peter an assessing once-over and said:

“Fine. You,” he called at Peter. “Get over here.”

Peter hurried over there. Juno Steel spoke like Mags did when he was angry. Clipped words, mostly body language that told you not to piss him off, and he had a bunch of scars Peter would have thought were cool had he not began to imagine Juno receiving them.

Maybe that was the reason he was so angry. Because he had been hurt.

“My name’s Peter.” He told him.

“Awesome.” His voice said it was not awesome. “You already saw Ben do ‘you want it, go get it’, right?” Peter nodded. “Alright, let’s see.”

And then he started actively studying Peter. He circled him as a predator would, eyes going up and down, gathering information, assessing weaknesses. It was unnerving. And thrilling. Peter wanted to learn how to do that. Peter wanted Juno to keep doing that. Maybe Juno could see past any disguise Peter could wear. The thought made him smile, and he had to clench his jaw to hide it. He didn’t want Juno to know Peter liked his eyes on him, and that realization made his face grow warm.

Suddenly, Juno’s hand grabbed him from the front of his sweater and yanked him forward ‘till they were face to face, their noses almost touching.

Peter’s heartbeat went all over the place as he saw Juno’s eyes from up close. They were not dark brown like he had first assumed: they were pitch black and deep.

And they were gazing into Peter’s own. He felt weak at the knees, and it had very little to do with the awkward position Juno had him in.

With his other hand, Juno grabbed Peter by the chin and pulled to study Peter’s face more thoroughly.

“Um, Juno,” he began, hating his voice for breaking. “What are you-“

Releasing him, Juno answered.

“You have pretty eyes.”

“What?” Peter tumbled back and stared at Juno.

“You have pretty eyes. And high cheekbones. You’re,” he gestured in his direction from up to down. “You’re _pretty_. You’ll get kidnapped.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You look fancy.”

“You do!” Benzaiten yelled from a chair he had perched up into.

“Thank you?” Peter was unsure if it was a compliment or not.

Juno shook his head. His hair, like Ben’s, was long, but it wasn’t braided and fell in his face. Peter wanted to push it away.

“They’ll kidnap you for some ransom. Listen carefully.” Peter leaned, giving Juno his full attention. “When you get kidnapped-”

“You mean, if.” Peter interrupted.

“No. When,” Juno emphasized. “When you get kidnapped, they’ll throw you into the trunk of a car. Don’t panic. Once you get your bearings, find the carpet that covers the tail light. Peel back the carpet, make a fist and punch the tail light out the back of the car. Now you have a hole, yeah?” Peter nodded slowly. “Good. Stick your hand out and wave to oncoming cars to let them know something suspicious is going on.”

Peter pictured that in his head, as he did with most of Mags plans.

“Won’t they think we’re turning left?” He asked Juno in all seriousness.

Juno blinked a couple of times, seemingly confused.

“What kind of cars to they have in the Outer Rim?” He asked back, while Ben laughed in the background.

“He’s a funny one, Juno!” Peter decided to keep his questions to a minimum, then.

“Moving on,” Juno shook his head. “You have no upper body strength.”

“Hey!”

“It’s not an insult, it’s a fact!” Ben said. “We are still underdeveloped, and we have to know our limitations.”

“Yeah, that,” Juno mumbled before continuing. “If someone tries to grab you, you can’t shake them off easily. So, here’s what you’ll do.”

Juno took hold of Peter’s arm.

“We’ll do this slowly; do as I say.” Peter nodded. “I grab you, and you need to drop to the floor, go on, good. On your back.” Peter obeyed, slipping of Juno’s hold. “And you kick upward at them.”

“Really?”

“Really.” Juno nodded. “That’ll throw them off their rhythm.” Peter looked up at Juno in bafflement. “That’s a very important part, Peter.” Peter liked the way Juno said his name. His voice was clear like he meant every word he said. Peter had never heard his name pronounced like that.

“You have to throw kidnappers and pedophiles off their rhythm to be able to escape,” Ben added from his spot.

“The kidnapper is not going to know what to do with feet coming at him at high speed, so you have to kick until he backs away enough for you to get up and run.” Juno then offered his hand to Peter and helped him up.

“You have a very grim view of life in the streets,” Peter commented as he shook some dust off his already dusty jeans.

“Yeah, he’s not ‘a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down’ kinda guy.” Ben agreed as he walked towards them. “But it’s kept us alive.”

There was again, Peter’s overactive imagination: he could see Juno, assessing Benzaiten the same way he had him, trying to figure out how to keep his peace-loving, see-good-in-everyone brother alive. He recalled how they were welcomed inside: ‘Where were you?’ Juno feared for his brother’s safety. A lot. Juno, whose arms were scarred, whose face was scrapped, who looked at the world like it had wronged him, and maybe it had, feared not for himself, but for Benzaiten. And even more, accepted the fact that he wouldn’t always be able to protect him. Accepted that it was them, Juno and Benzaiten Steel, against the big, mean world. Alone.

It broke Peter’s heart in a very particular way. He swallowed to get rid of the knot in his throat.

“When- uhm, when did you plan all of these tips?” Peter asked Juno, trying to keep his voice soft. He had learned that softer voices worked better with protectors; a part of him wanted to be protected by Juno, he realized, while the other part of him wanted to hide Juno and end whoever had hurt him.

“Hmm?” Juno frowned. “A long time ago. We were still kids. We planned them together, and then it was trial and error to see which ones worked.”

“We call it the Bittenbinder Method!” Ben smiled, a finger raised in the air like he had just remembered it.

“ _You_ call it the Bittenbinder Method.” Juno’s voice went kinder when it was directed at Ben, Peter realized, even when they bantered. It was cute.

Ben ignored Juno’s comment in its entirety.

“We found that name in one of Juno’s detective books! He was an officer in the 21st century who fought using weird, psych-out, back-door Chicago violence.”

“It was a good book,” Juno mumbled.

“Juno still wants to be a detective, just like him!” Peter whipped his head in Juno’s direction, but Juno didn’t deny it. In fact, he was looking away from them and Peter noticed Juno was flustered. It was the first real reaction Peter had seen from Juno for all the time he had been there, and it was adorable. Peter suddenly understood older people’s impulses to grab younger kid’s cheeks and pinch them. Peter wanted to pinch Juno Steel’s cheeks like he had wanted nothing in his life before.

“Stop looking at me like that, Nureyev.” He growled, but it had suddenly lost its bark. It didn’t matter anymore, because Peter couldn’t stop smiling, or stop imagining a grown-up Juno, still full of scars, probably with even more, in a long coat and a hat, walking around Hyperion City answering to the cry of ‘Detective Steel, help!’. A hero in the darkest times, he realized. Someone who fought for the wellbeing of others. A good man.

Juno Steel was a good kid and would be a good man.

“Looking at you like what?” He quipped. “C’mon _, Detective Steel_ ,” he teased. “Show me more back-door Chicago violence.”

“You’re on.” And for the first time, Juno smiled back at him.

 

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 

 

When Peter left the Steel’s house, he was carrying a money clip, a bag of white flour (“We don’t have actual cocaine,” Juno said. “But this should do the trick.”), rabbit-handling advice, a line of Alka-Seltzer tabs, and had memorized at least 5 other Steel tips to survive in the streets (“Repeat after me,” Juno ordered. “A comms-book doesn’t leave bruises.”), and he had stolen none of them. They had been freely given, hell, he had been encouraged to take them. And who could say no to Benzaiten’s enthusiastic smile and Juno’s wonderful eyes? Certainly not Peter, who was weak and obeyed every single order that was given to him.

Ben had offered to walk him home, and Juno had said goodbye with a nod and a _‘See you around, Nureyev’_. For the first time, Peter wanted to stay a little more; just enough to go to school and be able to see the Steel brother’s faces at lunch, to eat with them and complain about classes, to get inside jokes with them, to keep looking at Juno’s face and learn to pretend that it didn’t turn his insides to butter.

He wanted normal, for the very first time.

“He likes you, you know?” Ben spoke into the quiet night.

“Who?”

“Juno. Juno likes you.”

“He does?” Peter bit his lip, trying to hide his excitement.

“Yeah.” Ben smiled at him. “A lot.”

They shared that knowledge in joyful silence.

“Well,” Peter declared. “I like him too.” 

 

 

As soon as Peter got home, Mags threw him his suitcase and they left Mars.

 

. . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 

20 YEARS LATER

 

Peter had taken to the habit of putting his make-up as he watched the news. He killed two birds with one stone: it was a great way to get new jobs and he loved the gossip the Outer Rim provided. “And in Hyperion City, Mars,” the news lady said, catching Peter’s attention. “We’re taking you for a special report. Wilson, what do you have there?”

 

The camera changed. There was a man standing up in the middle of a park, mic in hand, and next to him, oh stars, next to him was-

“Thank you, Marissa. I am here with Detective Juno Steel-“ Peter barely contained a screech of joy. “Who fended off a kidnapper from a seven-year-old just a few minutes ago. Detective Steel, care to tell us how it went down?”

Detective Juno Steel didn’t seem entirely too pleased about the cameras on him, although that may have just been his face. He had the same grumpy expression, and the furrowed brows, and, just as Peter had predicted, more scars. His nose looked like it had been broken several times, and there was a thin scar over his lips where it had obviously been busted one too many times. Peter was struck with the desire to kiss it.

“Well, thank you for asking.” Detective Steel’s face declared how _so not-thankful_ he was, but he kept on explaining. “I used the Bittenbinder Method.” He shrugged, and Peter squealed.

“When I saw the perp approaching the kid, I chewed up a tab of Alka-Seltzer I carry with me at all times. This created a foaming-at-the-mouth appearance that made it look like I had rabies and ran at him. Now I’ve thrown him off his rhythm!” Juno wagged his finger proudly, smirking smugly at the surprised face of the cameraman. “Then I reached into his jacked where I had planted a gram of coke and went ‘Whoa, what is this?’. And he goes ‘That’s not mine!’ and ‘I´ve never seen that before!

“And I go ‘Boohoo. It’s in your jacket, and you’re doing two to ten years, and your children are going into social services. Now, _he’s_ crying! Then I grabbed a comms-book and I beat him in the torso with it, because as any HCPD officer will tell you-“

Peter recited along with Juno.

“ _A comms-book doesn’t leave bruises!”_

There was a horrified silence.

“Err, that was Detective Juno Steel from Hyperion City, currently being sued for police brutality.” Wilson, the news guy, seemed shaken, but Peter couldn’t remember the last time he felt this happy. He paused the newsfeed and stared at this new, grown-up and handsome man leisurely.

“Very well, _Detective Juno Steel_ ,” Peter purred into the quiet room. “Looks like you’re in need of a good lawyer. I’ll be right there, Detective. Just you wait.”

Peter Nureyev finished packing, and took out his new passport (Night Madej, a lawyer with a fondness for lost cases) and bought a ticket to Hyperion City, Mars.

His future couldn’t wait one more night.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!!   
> I miss Peter with all my heart, all those in favor to make a deal with the Devil to bring him back, say 'aye'.  
> Come screech with me about this idiots in tumblr as anielka-ela or in twitter as @AnielkaEla, I need more friends in the fandom.


End file.
